Design and Development of Self Propelled Walk Behind Finger Type Cotton Stripper

Abstract

In India, cotton is still picked manually by ladies pickers. Shortage of labor availability for cotton picking on farms results delayed picking of cotton crop and loss in term of cotton production. Commercially available cotton harvesters were tried for Indian varieties, but there were some issues regarding the cotton harvesting. Knowing the conditions of Indian farms, a conceptual design of self-propelled finger type cotton stripper is generated to pick/harvest the local high density and dwarf cotton varieties mechanically. In this self propelled finger type cotton stripper, the stripping fingers of 70 cm length were welded to the front part of engine frame at an angle of 21º. The width of the developed head was 64 cm. A rotating paddle/kicker, having a speed in the range of 120-250 min-1, was designed to push the stripped materials (cotton bolls i.e. opened and closed along with sticks and burs) in to the collecting tank. A collecting drum/tank, having capacity 15-20 kg, was attached just behind the cotton stripper head for collecting stripped cotton materials. The developed prototype was evaluated on F- 2383 and RCH-773 cotton varieties to observe its performance. The average value picking efficiency and picking capacity of developed cotton stripper was observed to be in the range of 76-80% and 135-325 kg·hr-1, respectively. The observed value of seedcotton was observed in the range of 74-80% by using boll crusher/seed-cotton extractor, operational at Bathinda in Punjab.

U Indiji se još uvek pamuk bere ručno. Nedostatak radne snage dovodi do odloženog branja i gubitaka u proizvodnji. Berači koji su dostupni na tržištu su probani sa indijskim sortama, ali bilo je problema. Poznajući uslove na farmama u Indiji, razvijen je berač sa prstima na ručni pogon za branje domaćih sorti pamuka. Kod ove konstrukcije prsti dužine 70 cm su zavareni na prednji deo rama mašine pod uglom od 21º. Širina glave je 64 cm. Rotacione pedale rotiraju sa 120-250 min-1 i guraju ubranu masu (čaure sa peteljkama) u sabirni sanduk kapaciteta 15-20 kg. Sanduk je postavljen odmah iza glave berača. Ovaj prototip je testiran na sortama F-2383 i RCH-773. Srednja efikasnost i kapacitet branja iznosili su 76-80% i 135-325 kg∙hr-1, redom. Istresanje semena je iznosilo 74-80% primenom drobilice čaura.